28 Jul One Misunderstood Belief About Forgiveness

There are many things in life that are misunderstood. For some, it’s math, or it’s other people, and for some, crazy situations where you don’t know the entire story. Forgiveness falls in this category for many people.

When I have spoken to people about forgiveness, they feel like they are forgiving to benefit the other person. The truth is that forgiveness is about you; not the other person. Your life is better when you forgive. However, sometimes, to understand what something is, you need to define what it’s not.

Forgiveness is NOT Trust

When someone breaks our trust, it leaves us feeling very vulnerable and hurt; and it sucks. The closer the person was, the more it hurts. If you have lived any amount of time, you have experienced it and its probably coming back to your memory right now.

Trust is neither a requirement for forgiveness nor an indicator that you forgave someone. Forgiveness is a decision that can be made quickly, but trust is the fruit of a healthy relationship built over time.

When trust is broken, we should forgive as quickly as we can, but trust is something that should be rebuilt over time.

“Forgiveness is given, but trust is earned.”– Pastor Peggy Heald

My Older Brother Teaching Me About Trust

One day my older brother and I were playing NBA Live on the Sega Genesis (Wow that was a long time ago). We were talking, and all of a sudden, he turned to me and said, “You have to learn who you can trust with what.”

Being very young and naïve, I didn’t get it. At that time, I figured if I can trust someone with a basketball, I could trust them with 1,000 dollars. My brother continued to say, “There are some people that I can trust with a basketball, that I cannot trust with a car.” I don’t remember much of the conversation after that, but that moment stuck in my head throughout my life.

“Forgiveness is a decision, but trust is a process.”– Devon Daniel

So how can you rebuild trust with someone that betrayed you?

1. Evaluate if the trust should be rebuilt

Again, keep in mind that forgiveness and trust are NOT the same things. I can forgive someone, but that doesn’t mean that I am obligated to rebuild the trust. Sometimes, you just need to understand that some people are noses, and some people are armpits. Both are necessary parts of your body, but they don’t need to be next to each other.

I have people in my life that I have forgiven but will not trust again unless the Lord tells me to rebuild that trust. I am not mad at them; I just don’t want to rebuild the trust. Some may disagree with this, but if we are honest, we all have people that we don’t get along with, and THAT IS OKAY!

If someone hurts my children intentionally, I will forgive them, but I will never leave that person alone with my children again. I will not trust them to babysit my children! Wisdom comes into play.

2. Evaluate What Happened

There are times where we need to take a step back and look at everything. Many times, we will find that we had a part to do with it. Not ALL the time, but in some cases, there are things that we could have done.

When we evaluate what happened, we can see it clearly and see the truth in what occurred. Emotions tend to blur the reality of what really happened. Our emotions can change our focus to the pain of the situation more than the situation itself.

3. Be Patient

If you decide to rebuild trust, start from the beginning, and go from there. DO NOT RUSH THE PROCESS! Rebuilding trust takes time.

I have heard many people say, “People don’t change!” I disagree with that. I believe people can change IF they do what’s necessary to change. The sad reality is that most people won’t do what’s necessary to change. To rebuild trust with the person that hurt you, both you and the person that offended you need to change. You need to change so that you don’t give your trust away too quickly, and the offender needs to recognize what happened and turn away from it.

Don’t make the mistake of correlating trust and forgiveness. You can forgive and not trust. TRUST IS NOT AN INDICATOR OF FORGIVENESS!

The bottom line is this; God tells us to forgive. The reason He tells us to forgive is that He knows that if we don’t, we will only hurt ourselves.

If this spoke to you, take some time to comment on this. Share it. I want to bless as many people with this as I can.